Future of energy storage in Melbourne

Melbourne company, SupraG Energy are working on the future of energy storage. They use graphene to develop a new generation of energy storage devices called super-capacitors. Super-capacitors are already being used so this story is in the vein of inventing a better mousetrap.

“It may look like grey paint on a roll of kitchen foil but engineer Chun Hin Ng is holding a wonder material, which he hopes will revolutionise how we store energy.

“We are working on the future of energy storage,” Dr Ng told an audience.

As the world moves to an increasingly electrified future, we need new ways to store and handle electricity. Typical batteries are slow to charge and discharge, lose performance after thousands of cycles and often involve harsh acids and scarce metals such as lithium.

SupraG Energy recently relocated from its roots at Monash University with an ambitious goal. To convert graphite, commonly used to make pencils, to an atomically thin sheet designed to store electricity.

SupraG takes a slurry of graphite, processes it with other additives and coats it onto a roll of aluminium foil as a supportive backing. In this form, the graphene possesses electrical storage and conductivity properties….

Unlike normal batteries, which charge slowly as they store energy in chemical reactions, super-capacitors made from graphene quickly create a store of static electricity….

… super-capacitor made from graphene can store less energy than a similar-sized conventional battery but it can discharge it much faster.

The fast-charging ability of a graphene super-capacitor could accompany the traditional batteries in an electric car, allowing quicker charging of the vehicle. Energy recovery is another option; super-capacitors are already being trialled in Europe to harness the braking energy from trucks….”

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